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grub writes "If you're one of the people that wins a free download from Apple's iTunes during the upcoming 100 million song giveaway from Pepsi, then check out Tune Recycler. They say: "With the Tune Recycler, you can send us your unwanted iTunes bottlecap codes and we'll use them to support independent music. Easy for you, and good for musicians" Sounds like a great idea for payments that may otherwise be tossed in the trash."

Even the Tune Recycler site admits that Pepsi and Apple are expecting that a majority of the "winning" bottlecaps are going to be ignored and unclaimed. If this kind of site encurages more returns than antisipated, might this prevent there from being a repeat of this promotion in the future?

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on the fact that 90% of idiots will go "Hmm, there's this Eye-Tunes thing in my Pepsi... oh well" and toss it. I'd bet that probably very few people will cash in their codes, and even fewer will give them away to this site or even know it exists.

Personally, I'm in Canada, so I don't really care (iTMS isn't over here because of the Canadian music industry being a pain).

I have to say that I'm glad the nearby college campus is a Pepsi campus. Back when Pepsi was doing its PepsiStuff/DewStuff promotion, I regularly patrolled the buildings on campus, fishing Pepsi and Dew bottles out of the trash and taking the caps...as most people who drink the things will keep the cap with the bottle and then screw it back on to throw it away.

You may laugh at me for trash-can diving...but I ended up getting a nice backpack, a mini-Mag lite, a DVD of Jackie Chan's Gorgeous...and, for 255 bottlecaps, a 16 meg RIO mp3 player. That's a lot of stuff.

Parent post is rightly modded Funny, but in case anyone doesn't get the joke:

Yes, in the US at least most college campuses are either "Pepsi" or "Coke" campuses, in that either the university or some other company has a monopoly on soda pop sales on university property, and both Pepsi and Coke require exclusivity if you want any of the goodies they give out.

And those goodies can be pretty nice. Sometimes just plain old cash. Sometimes they pay for advertising for your business as long as it has a Pepsi|Coke logo on it. Lots of other stuff.

I used to buy cans in neighboring states that didn't have deposits (like Indiana) then turn them in at a store in MI for $.10 a can. This worked until the stores started getting machines that scanned the bar code on the can.

This worked until the stores started getting machines that scanned the bar code on the can.

Why should that matter? The UPC code on Coke cans will be the exact same in Michigan as they are in Ohio, as they are in Canada,etc. That's kind of the point of UPC. All of the cans sold anywhere in the country contain the deposit messages even though they are normally bottled locally for each market, Coke and Pepsi don't want to redesign their cans for each market so there is no way they are going to use a unique U

It's very likely that those that don't have any interest in the iTMS codes or how they can get free music, don't have any interest in this project either. My guess is they'll still ignore it, and if someone else tries to gather up codes locally they're more likely to use it to get a nice collection rather than donate it to this project anyway.

So while it's a nice thing, I hardly think it'll have a significant impact on the number of caps claimed.

On one level, this is a silly promotion, since it doesn't make a lot of sense for people to send them their bottle caps so they can buy music. Why not just use the suggestions on their web site to buy whatever music you want to support yourself?

And if you think of it, this promotion really IS a brilliant way to highlight labels owned by their friends and acts that they like.

On that level, it's really a very nice job, and I'm sure it will help sales of "their" music.

Even the Tune Recycler site admits that Pepsi and Apple are expecting that a majority of the "winning" bottlecaps are going to be ignored and unclaimed. If this kind of site encurages more returns than antisipated, might this prevent there from being a repeat of this promotion in the future?

There's no way this project will even cause a blip on the radar. In fact, I'd be really surprised if they got many submissions at all. Generally, the people who do not participate in the contest will either be those who threw the cap away without even looking at it, or people who are not net-savvy enough to be 'hip' to iTunes and anyone who falls into that category certainly isn't going to know about this project.

Use them yourself and buy the independent music that's available from iTunes? That way, you're helping to support the independent artist, AND you're opening up yourself to new music!

Don't download that song you've heard a million times on the radio or something like that. Explore the musical frontiers...even if they're not that good, you'll never know unless you look. And you may find a gem.

If you DO find a gem of a song out there, you've "won" again in addition to the free download itself!

Being a loyal Slashdot reader, I of course posted before RTFA in which it states:

I use iTunes, so why should I send you my bottlecap code?You shouldn't! If you use the iTunes Music Store, we don't want the cap, you should redeem it yourself. However, we would strongly encourage you to use the cap to buy music that's not from one of the 5 major labels. The website RIAA Radar can help you figure out if music that you're thinking of buying is put out by a member of the RIAA. Use the tree to see what labels are just major label fronts.

If this kind of site encurages more returns than antisipated, might this prevent there from being a repeat of this promotion in the future?

Why would it? Pepsi (with Apple's cooperation) is the one running the contest, not any of the music labels. The music labels (both the "Big Five" and the indies) care which songs consumers choose to download, but there's no reason for Pepsi to do so (well, unless you make the stretch of saying they hope to groom more corporate teen pop a la Britney for use in their f

- Pepsi pays full price for each song;- Pepsi expects x% of the caps to be redeemed, and has budgeted for the promotion accordingly;- This site could cause 2x% or 3x% to be redeemed instead, thus- Pepsi and other companies might think twice about running such a promotion in the future, because it costs a lot to do so.

However, as others have pointed out, if only a small percentage of Pepsi drinkers are either (a) current iTunes users or (b) likely to sign up ju

might this prevent there from being a repeat of this promotion in the future?

Which is exactly what these jerks want. The Downhill Battle people are CHRONICALLY anti-pop. They hate everything about the industry, and want bands to start getting more profits RIGHT NOW. And for some reason, they're taking Apple to task for choosing to support the major labels (who have money, visibility and songs people actually want to buy) instead of the current nobodys yearning to be heard.

No. Generally, game pieces have a clause in their contract that they cannot be resold individually. Furthermore, they technically have a cash value of 1/20 cents (read the fine print). IANAL, but IAARSP (I am a relatively smart person).

"Furthermore, they technically have a cash value of 1/20 cents (read the fine print). IANAL, but IAARSP (I am a relatively smart person)."

Many coupons specify a "cash redemption value" of 1/20 or 1/100 cent. But a thing is still worth what it will bring. Think about it. If this weren't true, why would anyone pay a premium for a 1943 copper penny which technically has a cash value of 1 cent? You may be a relatively smart person but you are nonetheless wrong.

True. On paper coupons where you see that printed it refers specifically to the redemption value honored by the issuer. In other words you could not turn in x number of "$1.00 off" coupons to the manufacturer and redeem them for x dollars. Absent that legalese you probably could make the case for forcing them to give you that cash value in actual cash. At least that's probably why the "cash value" statement appears.

Now, as others are saying, something is worth what people are willing to pay. That $1.00 off coupon that you are not going to use has no material value to you but is worth some amount up to $1.00 to me if I am going to buy the promoted item. I could give you $0.50 and we'd both be getting something. The same would apply to these winning caps provided there is not some legal barrier to selling them. Certainly there is in some areas and you would invite trouble with a mass sale in the open on eBay. But a private, or much less public, sale between individuals would not invite scrutiny. Anyway, Pepsi and Apple both win if you drink enough to get to the point where you are contemplating what to do with your winnings.

Better ask for overnight delivery on that winning bid - all coupons have to be redeemed by April 30 2004 (and don't bother bidding on more than 200, that's the maximum number of downloads per email address).

I don't think this campaign of theirs will work out. If only %10-%20 percent of people are going to redeem their caps on iTunes, even less are going to go through the hassle of mailing bottlecaps to someone. I bet they'll get maybe 1000 caps.

As for me, im going to the store to see if they started the iTunes promotion, and if they have, I will be buying a few cases of Pepsi.

Who's picking which songs will be downloaded with the turned-in codes? How do we not know that this isn't being set up by a group of artists who want to boost their own sales? Is there any way for additional artists to sign up to get a cut of this money?

Every week or so, we'll be choosing a few independent artists and a particular album of theirs which we will repeatedly purchase using the donated codes. If we buy enough copies of a single album, we might even be able to move it up the iTunes charts-- it's not too hard these days. All the artists will be from independent labels with reputations for treating artists fairly.

How do I know you guys aren't just going to buy music for yourself?

Well, we run the music activism project Downhill Battle [downhillbattle.org], which is working to bring positive change to the music industry. A central theme of our site is that it's simply unethical to purchase major label music. So clearly, if we wanted free major label music, we'd just take it. Furthermore, since iTunes is essentially a voluntary contribution system (you're paying for something that you could get for free), there's just no incentive to scam people out of bottlecaps. We're just trying to make it easier for people to do something good with their caps instead of throwing them away."

Holy Shit, Batman! Score another one for the "can load the page before hitting reply button" team!

Just sitting on your hands and whinning about something when you can quickly find out & decide for yourself is silly. I'll humour you for a couple more clicks, though...

WhatACrappyPresent [whatacrappypresent.com] is their creation, and they've been in the news [downhillbattle.org] a whole bunch. You can even call Nicholas, one of the creators of the site, at home via the whois info. I'm sure he'll be happy to answer your questions.

Downhill Battle [downhillbattle.org] runs this thing. They are a non-profit music activism group dedicated to returning diversity to mainstream music [downhillbattle.org]. They are two very idealistic non-artists who definitely are not trying to boost their own sales. Hopefully they will choose well whom they support and publicly document their reasoning. Incidentally, they need help with the backend for the Recycler, so please contact them if you think you can help (and you are inclined to help them, of course).

Ok, so you're saying that geeks will camp out on a sidewalk for months to get Star Wars movie tickets, but asking them to switch from Mountain Dew to Pepsi for two months is just GOING TOO GODDAMNED FAR?

"When you submit a winning Pepsi code to the Tune Recycler, we'll redeem it for music from honest, independent labels."
Just because a label is independent doesn't make them honest. There are shady businesses everywhere.

That's true, that's why they qualified "independent labels" with the adjective "honest". Presumably they will only use the codes on HONEST indie labels, and hopefully they will have done enough research that they can say with confidence that the labels they support are "non-evil".

We call it "try before you buy."It's the shareware model applied to music.

Listen to hundreds of MP3'd albums from our artists. Or try our genre-based radio stations.
If you like what you hear, buy our music online for as little as $5 an album or license our music for commercial use.
Artists get a full 50% of the purchase price. And unlike most record labels, our artists keep the rights to their music.
F

I wish I had the type of nimble, strong, and boisterous advocacy for my art that independent musicians seem to have. The darn Pepsi deal hasn't even officially started yet and they're already trying to maximize profit.

Their machine would be pretty impressive to me if there weren't other types of artists out there in much greater need. I mean, you can't swing a friggin' cat without hitting some longhair with a guitar. But a painter, sculptor etc? Have fun trying to "get paid" for that.

You don't really have to be good. I know a lot of really, really good artists who barely eke out a living. The best art I've ever seen was produced by a woman who never made much of anything on her art. She was able to successfully barter it (trading art to the vet, etc.). Now she's making her living by teaching glass blowing. It lets her survive while creating more art.

On the other hand, there's my ex-wife. She has a pretty lucrative side-business creating commisioned art. She is, at best, a medioc

Funny, but that's all I see in trade shows / street festivals etc in a huge (several hundred mile) radius of where I live. And so far, I have not seen one decent painting. Sure, they all paint good (well, most of them do), but they don't seem to paint good subjects. Every friggin' person has to paint a barn or house covered in snow with some birds around it.
</rant>

Now, a sculptor I could see as being poor. I never see them. Except ice sculptors, and they have plenty of business i

Wouldn't a better plan be to link to some of the better indie artists on the service and tell people to download their songs, therefore allowing people to actually listen to the music their code purchased?

I'm all for musicians getting a decent cut of the profit their music generates, but this doesn't do that at all.

This gives big chunks of money to a few specific bands chosen by downhillbattle, and gives the consumer no music in return.

Hell, this actually discurages perople from listening to these indie bands' music, by taking a potential listener's free song and essentially throwing it away. That sounds alot more like what a corporate money grubing weasel would do than an honest musician who actually wants to be heard.

Since I use Linux I can't use iTunes, so a winning bottlecap would be of no use to me. I don't really drink Pepsi much, but if I happened to get a bottlecap I might consider sending it to them since I wouldn't be able to use it myself.

Since I actually listen primarily to independent music I prefer the eMusic store, which thankfully runs on Linux. So, I'll keep on supporting independent bands with the music I buy through other means, and maybe give them a little extra support that I wouldn't have otherwis

and i dont mean the site asking for caps. The interesting bit it that this will be announced in a big commercial during the superbowl later today that will proclaim that you can legally download free music. i get the impression that this will appeal to alot of people. i hope that it is a huge success.. i know iwill buy pepsi instead of coke simple becasue of the offer:).. i think thw best thing to do is get a song and give to 2 friends as well that way you have 1/3 odds and 3 people:)

What Pepsi is effectively giving away is 99 cent gift certificates to iTunes Music Store... which can be used to download any song on the service. Reportedly, Pepsi will be paying Apple the full 99 cents for every code that gets turned in...

Not even, Pepsi can print 100 million codes and safely assume that only 20% are going to actually be turned in... therefore Pepsi hands a $20 million check to Apple and it's all settled.

$20-30 million isn't out of line for a soft drink promotion... remember the "Play For a Billion" game that Pepsi ran last summer, and will likely repeat this year. This contest just gives out a lot of little prizes instead of having any big ones.

Therefore Pepsi hands a $20 million check to Apple and it's all settled.

I'm guessing that his is not how it works (though I could be wrong and you could be right;-). My understanding on how these promotions go, is that pepsi actually pays some insurance company (or, more-likely, a company that specializes in promotion coverage, like this one [scapromotions.com].) a straight fee (like the $20 million you mentioned), Pepsi probably says "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we gave away 100 millions songs for free off of itunes?", t

Which basically meant it in total cost about $20-30 Million to run between the smaller prizes that were awarded, the transportation of the 1000 qualifiers for a free trip to Florida, and the staging of the TV show that actually awarded closer to $2 million in real prizes.

I would feel a lot better about this if there was some public accountability from Tunerecycler. Do we get statements? A redemption receipt? Summaries at the end? Anything?

As an independent musician, I find it odd that they have never responded to an email asking for more info from an artist's POV - especially when asking for clarification on their stance on iTunes downloads. Silence can often speak volumes.

If this was simply a list of all the bands and labels at the iTunes store (with proper documentation) that you SHOULD support by redeeming the caps yourself, I would be all for it. But there are enough holes here (and enough errors in the so-called label "tree") that I wouldnt touch this thing with a 3 metre pole.

Have fun. Listen to music. But dont get sucked in.

(DISCLAIMER: The band I am in offers ALL of our CDs for free on our web site, all the time. iTunes wouldn't touch us if we were the last band on earth. Whether or not you use the caps, recycle them, or paste them on a squirrel, makes no matter to us.)

They're advocating sending in unused coupons so they can buy multiple copies of music from indie artists. If you don't want to install iTunes, that's an ok proxy, I guess, and better than just throwing them out.

I think a better approach would be if all slashdot readers (or tunecycler advocates) would get indie music. tunecycler could list a new artist or song to check out every couple days, and pepsi-guzzling geeks could get a free song. That would put money in the indie artist's pocket and expose more people to their music, something their approach doesn't do.

The problem is that Downhill Battle is, first of all, providing this service for people who have not installed or cannot install iTunes (such as Linux users).
Secondly, they don't think that iTunes is a good idea, and they'd rather that people didn't use it at all. See their site iTunes is bogus [downhillbattle.org].

Apple's Official Rules for the promotion state that the, "Maximum number of valid Codes per email address/person that can be entered at the Web Site is 10 per day and 200 total throughout the Promotion Period." I wonder how these guys are going to get around that?

What kind of codes are Pepsi and Apple using in the bottle caps. Are the codes following some pattern or are they using random numbers?? If they follow a pattern and it is true that only 10% of all codes are used, one could just boost his favorite independant artist, during the last day of the promotion and no one would notice (except pepsi that is) provided you found the algorithm, ofcourse.

Given the size of the collection of valid numbers that they're presumably going to accumulate, perhaps they have a better chance of finding a pattern that lets them increase their odds. Did you even think about the question the grandparent comment was asking??

The site given links to RIAA Radar, a site that tells the relative connection between an artist and the RIAA. A better solution would be to go to that site and discover some new, independent music for yourself. That's actually what they tell people to do if you already use iTunes... they just want the caps if you don't want to bother downloading Apple's program.

At the very beginning they claim the service and the software will cost you more than the Pepsi proving they're either ignorant or dishonest. Then all the way through the article they make it obvious that for whatever reason they have a corn cob up their rear ends about iTunes.

If you want to support independents, then fer cryin' out loud, go out and buy their CDs, records, tapes, and online music. And especially support local live music---you won't regret it. Don't turn to these really strange self appo

The problem is that the largest difficulty in getting a consumer to redeem the bottle cap certificate is having them remember not to throw it away, and instead bring it home and type it into the computer.
This recycling idea counts on people bringing home their caps but NOT redeeming them. I'm really not quite sure why anyone would want to do that. I certainly have a whole bunch of music I'd be more than happy to get for free one way or another, some of which includes independent albums.
Why can't they simply encourage people to buy music from indy groups, instead of essentially throwing the money away on licensed files that no one's ever going to listen to?
It's one thing to have big sales on iTunes, but if no one's ACTUALLY LISTENING to the music, what point does it serve?

An easier solution would be to publish a list of songs (or links to them) from "honest, independent labels" and let people purchase them on their own. It would save them money on gathering the codes and may expose people to new music.

The same group also promotes putting stickers on merchandice in stores. Without authorization from the store owner. That's vandalism (and not very bright that you can whois their domain and get their address).

People who endorse and encourage illegal activities normally aren't very reputable.

I'd be very cautious.

If you like the idea... why not just buy an an independant song off of iTunes yourself? That way your "recycling" yourself. And you know it will happen.

If the idea is to negative the whole iTunes/Pepsi thing, then the call to action should be about a protest to _not_ cash back any tunes. This way, both Pepsi and iTunes find it to be a failed advertising exercise and it can only help the competition of other services.

In the long run, I think Pepsi probably assumed that 20% at least of these winning bottle caps would be thrown out and as such they would have to pay less in the long run. They probably have a sweet deal with Apple pushing around $0.20 a song so would have been $20 million dollars at full value. 20% savings on that ($4mill) would have been worth it considering the advertising value is the same regardless of the number of redemptions.

I am getting really sick of sloppy, idiotic journalists who absolutely insist on referring to those whom the RIAA has sued as "music downloaders," and the USA Today article is a prime example of this complete stupidity.

AFAIK, in absolutely not one single solitary incident has the RIAA sued anyone for downloading music files. They have only ever sued people for sharing music files in excess of a certain number, and even then only if the person is sharing a lot of popular, contemporary music.

Admittedly, those who are sharing files are more than likely downloading them as well, but that is not why they've been sued.

These journalists appear to be utterly incapable of doing even the most basic homework on this issue. One journalist mistakenly writes "The RIAA is suing people for downloading music" and every other journalist, rather than double-checking to see what exactly the lawsuits are about, just parrots what the first journalist wrote. It makes me ill. Thanks to the ever-shoddier American news media, people out there think that downloading "The Log Driver's Waltz" from Gnutella is going to result in uniformed officers kicking their door in moments later, which, at the moment, is simply not true.

As we all know, the RIAA is a massive misinformation machine, and now Pepsi and Apple are jumping in and lending a hand in distributing the RIAA's "We're suing everyone" propaganda. The truth is quite different, but I doubt that more than a handful of Superbowl watchers is going to jump online to ferret out the real story.

The promotion itself sounds like an effective one, and I'm sure it'll bring people to the ITMS in droves, but we really can do without the lies.

I'm hoping that people are going to use my site to find new bands to buy with their free songs. Not in the mood to download more Radiohead? Click on Radiohead on Musicmobs and find a more independent artist that people that like Radiohead also like. Of course, there's no guarantee that what you are looking for will be in the iTunes store.

With any kind of promotion like this, they are expecting only a certain percentage of people to actually bother to redeem the botttle caps - if 10% redeem them, they only have to pay royalties for 10% of the songs in the give away. Now, more bottle caps will be redeemed then they counted on - this could end up being a very high price tag for Pepsi!

First off, I find this whole Pepsi promotion to be ridiculous; almost as ridiculous as Pepsi's "Billion Dollar Giveaway" from last year. Pepsi believes they only will have 10 to 20 million songs redeemed. Then if you read the rules, a single user is limited legally to 200 downloads, and only 10 can be registered per day. Pepsi's limitations are designed to reduce the amount of songs redeemed. Then you have the fact that Joe Blow has to already have iTunes installed on their computer or download it. If you'll notice at the locations that sell Pepsi, you won't find any CD's that you can pick up that has iTunes already loaded, unlike say if AOL ran the promotion.

Next, you have the Tune Recycler campaign. They want people to "recyle" those iTunes caps. Great idea. I myself wanted to do such a thing online before I read about the 200 download cap on the Rules page this morning. So this group will not be able to download en masse, otherwise Pepsi will cut them off. That means they'll parcel the collected entries between various members of their group. They might claim altruistic reasons, but the simple matter-of-fact is that the downloaded files will be on someone's hard drive and therefore it becomes their "property" even under the DRM limitations. So which songs will these people download?

If Tune Recyler was really serious about their campaign, they'd ask that you input your email address for each of the bottle cap numbers you donate to them, and then put it to a vote of their users as to which songs from which artists they should purchase as well as the volume, all based upon voting. But they don't do that now, do they? Sorry, that's not appealing to me.

The Tune Recycler group then goes on about how bad the iTunes Music Store is since it works with the RIAA. Fine. But they also fail to realize that if iTunes becomes really successful, that will tempt bands to dump their labels and deal directly with Apple, cutting out the middle-man. That will be the end of pre-recorded CDs being sold in retail channels. And I expect that the first major band to do such a thing will be Duran Duran with their much publicized reunion album almost complete and the band yet to re-sign with any of the RIAA labels yet. (And no, I'm not counting Annie DeFranco in this equation either) The simple fact is Tune Recycler cannot see what is plainly in sight on the near horizon with their protest mentality.

And yes, you can only play those AAC files on an iPod. How monopolistic of Apple, I'm sure the Tune Recycler folk will say. But of course with Apple's rather lightweight DRM implementation, you can take those AAC files, burn them in CD format, and then turn them into MP3s or OGGs or whatever else you want. The only other commercial choices support Microsoft's tin-can-sounding WMA format, which is NOT a standard no matter how much money Microsoft throws into PR to claim that it is. So if Tune Recycler wishes to view the world in good and evil terms, you have Apple on one end and Microsoft on the other. Which will you choose?

I'd like to end this posting with stating that I want to see our online community really stick it to Pepsi and claim as many of these bottle caps as possible. We have until March 31st to claim the downloads, so let's get to work.

p.s. The Lynxpro does not work for the RIAA, Apple, or PepsiCo. He actually favours Coke and thinks CokeMusic.com is pretty slick although he abhors their embrace of WMA...

p.p.s. The Lynxpro also thinks Tune Recyler is naive in thinking Pepsi is actually paying Apple 99 cents for each claimed download. In all probability, Pepsi is paying the fee sans the percentage of the cost Apple has built-in to pay the credit card companies for the micropayments. Apple might also be waiving their profit markup as well, so in all actuality, Pepsi is probably paying less than 88 cents per redeemed download...

No Purchase Necessary. To receive one free game piece and a copy of Official Rules, while supplies last, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope postmarked on or before 3/31/04 to: Pepsi iTunes Game Piece, P.O. Box 9205, Young America, MN 55558-9205. Residents of the state of VT may omit return postage. Limit one free game piece per request per stamped outer envelope.

So Vermont residents, for the cost of two envelopes, you can get a game piece which has a 1/3 chance of winning. It doesn't look as if there's a limit to the number of times you can mail in for your free game piece either, as long as each request is in a separate envelope.

Why was this modded up? The site never claims any affiliation with Apple and even criticizes iTunes a bit. They're a group who wants to support artists on independent lables, not specifically Apple. Please read the article before moderating (or commenting, but I guess that's too much to ask).

They can have whatever opinion they want, but really isn't apple (and pepsi for that matter) the biggest benefactor of this no matter what they do? Apple gets the same cut regardless of which record label the artist is signed to. If they think this is unfair (the impression I get from their website), shouldn't they be telling people to not use itunes at all and buy directly from the artist? Seems silly to me to be saying that this is a bad thing in one breath, yet encourgaging people to use it (albeit by